One step closer to reliving the Satellaview.

[Kiddo]

Hey. folks. I figured this was a pretty big development, so I thought I'd mention it here:

A friend of mine, Luigiblood, has been working on "BS-X Project", a fork of BSNES intended to simulate a Satellaview's online environment, for a while now.

Most importantly and recently, though, some groundbreaking progress in getting this to work.
Check a few of the video logs;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHm_n7Ivnes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV7J0_uESTI

Some of this stuff is now in "bsnes-bsx v002".
http://bsxproj.superfamicom.org/index.htm
In this version you can modify various aspects of the town (particularly NPCs and items) by editing the "bsx?.bin" files included with the emulator. (I may post some example bins if everyone needs help on this.)

This is a great deal of progress in a short period of time. I hope everyone enjoys this. :)

Future updates will certainly get even closer to replicating the experience - perhaps someday Soundlink games may even be loaded in a manner that's similar to how they originally were! Of course, we might need a streaming radio service to help with that there...

A lot of the info being learned from the project is being archived here;
http://wiki.superfamicom.org/snes/show/Satellaview+%28Meta%29

[Steven]

Cool, thanks for sharing this.

BTW, props again to you -- the man who made "BS Out of Bounds Golf" possible for play on a real Super Nintendo :)


http://www.rvgfanatic.com/mediac/400_0/media/DIR_1518678/BSOoBG-W2.JPG

[Colorado Rockies]

Whoa that is awesome. Looks and sounds a lot like Earthbound.

[Blanka789]

Great developments. I haven't been paying attention to Satellaview stuff for years, but I guess I should start again.

[Jorpho]

With the controversy that seems to surround BSNES's development, I wouldn't have expected someone to manage to fork it.

Anyway, while this is all intriguing, it will be much more so when it is all translated. :( (It'd be nifty someday if someone completed a complete audio redub for the BS SMB USA and Zelda games. What I'd really like to see is an English patch for Dynami Tracer and Treasure Conflix, but those aren't necessarily Satellaview-hardware related.)

[Kiddo]

With the controversy that seems to surround BSNES's development, I wouldn't have expected someone to manage to fork it.

Anyway, while this is all intriguing, it will be much more so when it is all translated. :( (It'd be nifty someday if someone completed a complete audio redub for the BS SMB USA and Zelda games. What I'd really like to see is an English patch for Dynami Tracer and Treasure Conflix, but those aren't necessarily Satellaview-hardware related.)

In terms of (recent) fan translation stuff;
1) The BS-X ROM itself has had some translation, although a lot of the stuff recently discovered has obviously not been translatedyet.
2) There is someone I recall working on Dynami Tracer a while back, and someone who expressed enough interest in Treasure Conflix to do a text dump.

[Kitsune Sniper]

With the controversy that seems to surround BSNES's development, I wouldn't have expected someone to manage to fork it.

Controversy? What's going on?

[theclaw]

I'm not sure. I think the author rants a bit once in a while. The real point behind bsnes holds no meaning to casuals. They're used to having the most popular games run fine enough. Trying to explain how many numerous seemingly harmless micro-bugs emulators contain, goes over their head.

[Jorpho]

I'm not sure. I think the author rants a bit once in a while. The real point behind bsnes holds no meaning to casuals. They're used to having the most popular games run fine enough. Trying to explain how many numerous seemingly harmless micro-bugs emulators contain, goes over their head.Aye, something like that.

[theclaw]

Funny part is SNES doesn't even demonstrate it best. Stuff like Virtual Boy or Vectrex would border on impossible to recreate the original experience, due to their monitors. While N64 emus (arguably a graphical godsend at the cost of accuracy) lack that infamous blurring.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Aye, something like that.People are still whining over that? Jesus.


Funny part is SNES doesn't even demonstrate it best. Stuff like Virtual Boy or Vectrex would border on impossible to recreate the original experience, due to their monitors. While N64 emus (arguably a graphical godsend at the cost of accuracy) lack that infamous blurring.

The Virtual Boy should be able to be emulated sorta properly now with all those 3D glasses that are coming out for PCs. In theory, anyway.

[fahlim003]

I'm not sure. I think the author rants a bit once in a while. The real point behind bsnes holds no meaning to casuals. They're used to having the most popular games run fine enough. Trying to explain how many numerous seemingly harmless micro-bugs emulators contain, goes over their head.
What you say is true but I wouldn't consider this even remotely a controversy. It only makes sense that emulators over time become more accurate since shortcuts that were made in the past to not hinder emulator speed are no longer an issue. Yes, bsnes has a large system requirement because the aim isn't speed it's accuracy and at a cost (for now).

I say this and even I still use zsnes as opposed to bsnes since as you said, it's a pretty specialized program which has many features casual players simply don't consider/wouldn't notice. The author sure seems dedicated to project and I can respect wanting to see it through to completion. They do go on at great length at times discussing why they are doing what they do, but if it's not to your interest there's nobody forcing you to read it. Take this article for example at 3 pages long however it is a pretty interesting primer as to the "why" behind the project.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator.ars/1

[Jorpho]

People are still whining over that? Jesus.Maybe they aren't, but the rage echoes. :vamp:

[Kiddo]

Since the use of BSNES as a base here seems to be more of a conversation than the actual results so far, I'll leave a comment on that;
(NOTE: My beliefs may not exactly coincide with LuigiBlood here.)

I appreciated the hardware-accuracy BSNES is going for because, to the best of my knowledge, it was outright necessary for a project such as this. Pretty much any emulator before BSNES that ran a Satellaview Soundlink ROM used "shortcuts", mostly involving skipping the BIOs loadup, Soundlink streaming or other features that were originally part of the design entirely. The various hack-ish methods caused each emulator to have a completely different and variable compatibility list.
For example, SNES9XPP XE is the only emulator so far that can run the BS F-Zero Grand Prix Soundlink "Leagues" and actually allow lap-clearing. Meanwhile, BSNES is the only emulator that can run the "Kouryaku Casino Bar" ROM dump from a while back. SNESGT, meanwhile, is the emulator that plays the BS Zelda Dai-3-wa ROM closest to how it was broadcast - namely, it doesn't hack the SPC BGM to be on. Compatibility with Magazines in particular is all over the place, with all three emulators being able to load certain ones and not others for inexplicable reasons.
BSNES, which aimed for hardware-accuracy, felt like a good step in the right direction to telling me, at least, what was -supposed- to run in an offline environment (quick checkup for those not in the know - Soundlink games were meant to be streamed, not booted up from the BIOs. The players weren't even supposed to know game data was in their 8M Packs), but byuu's official stance was that "accuracy = -current- accuracy", and thus, there would be no official extension to Satellaview emulation besides the loading of 8M Packs to both BS-X and Data Packs (the latter, IIRC, still needsa degree of work on it, as not all Data Packs work for whatever strange reason.).

Due to that, my general pattern of testing Satellaview ROMs involved at -least- 3 different emulators (Usually BSNES, SNESGT, and SNES9XPP XE - in that order. Skipping BSNES if the game is obviously Soundlink.).
This is rather silly to most people who associate hack-ish emulators with being simple and casual - the current method for trying to load Satellaview ROMs is in fact just the opposite, an overly-complex affair! This is why many people simply don't even bother playing the Satellaview - or at best, certainly not the ones more difficult to get to boot up, like BS Tantei Club.

If the BS-X Project can properly simulate the Satellaview environment from back in the day, then hopefully this would, with BSNES's accuracy, resolve all of this, by having, truly, a single emulator that can run -every- Satellaview ROM, and not only that, but playing them in a simulation of the actual Satellaview environment - something much closer to "The way it was meant to be played" than anything else before.

[byuu]

I do really appreciate LuigiBlood taking charge with the RE stuff. As I've said to Matthew Callis, I will eventually do the RE work on the base system and the flash cartridges.

I am not opposed, long-term, to providing the interface necessary for the BS-X emulation to talk to a server that fakes being the Satellaview service, assuming we can make it that far.

The only thing I'm not going to do is cheat. Say we are online and Soundlink data is streaming when it is not, skip the clock ahead 7 minutes because BS Zelda was detected, hack out the deleted game flag check, etc.

As a preservationist, the system just bothers me for some reason. It was such an amazing service, and nobody with access to it gave two shits about preserving any of it while they could. So much is definitely lost forever at this point, that it's depressing to work on.


Controversy? What's going on?

There isn't any. People not involved in writing emulators are trying to create it. Especially those who are really close but not actually involved to development.

I just wrote the newest SPC sound core for Snes9X, OV2/Snes9X donated my XAudio2 output driver, and we both share blargg's DSP core. I've been helping Jonas Quinn/ZSNES with DSP-n low-level emulation and SA-1 graphics conversion modes, and he's been helping me (a whole lot more) with Game Boy emulation. Overload/Super Sleuth was a huge help with Cx4 LLE work. GIGO/SNESGT shared with me his SuperFX emulation code, and I gave him my SPC7110 emulation code.

Imagine you're a parent on a long car trip, and the kids just keep asking "are we there yet?" every two minutes. Every now and again you'll snap and scream "No!" Replace the kids with non-developers and the question with something I've answered a million times already, and there's your "controversy."

[Kitsune Sniper]

Imagine you're a parent on a long car trip, and the kids just keep asking "are we there yet?" every two minutes. Every now and again you'll snap and scream "No!" Replace the kids with non-developers and the question with something I've answered a million times already, and there's your "controversy."

Wait, that's not controversy, that's standard emulation operating procedure. Have people forgotten the NeoGeo / CPS2 kiddies already?

Jeez, I haven't even been in emulation as long as a lot of folks and I STILL see this as something "normal". I was afraid you'd deleted your site or something. :P

[Jorpho]

Well, that clears that up.

At the risk of straying too far from the subject of the thread, what's this SNES9XPP XE?

[Kiddo]

XPP XE appears to be a Japanese-originated fork of an old SNES9X Version which has a good amount higher Satellaview ROM compatibility than the mainline SNES9X, last I checked.

[LuigiBlood]

I thought it was needed to register just for this. (the wonders of searching "BS-X Project" on Google for fun)

I've been mostly doing some random modifications to the files and documented it on the wiki.
I will say why BSNES and not any others:
BSNES has everything i need.
Accuracy, (Little) Data Pack Support, Debugger with a Memory Viewer/Editor.

I'm very bad with C++, but well, i'll be getting used to it.

I did some new Video Logs now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaEOay9ljpA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P317zCaSfZ0
And i'm proud. And all is done with bsnes-bsx v002 (which is perfect enough for this).

AND IT ONLY APPEARS NOW?!

[Kiddo]

Another couple of videos that show high promise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5X9_dBTYkw
Now, the buildings can come alive as well. They can either open shops, or download schedules. I'm uncertain if there's any mode where you explore their insides...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaEOay9ljpA
One particularly neat thing you can do is custom items. This kind of setup was probably used for having users obtain many of the items That were recovered from very recent BS-X SRAM dumps. (http://superfamicom.org/blog/2011/06/big-update-bs-x-sram-dumps/) Just to repeat for clarity: These items (The "book" that Luigiblood added in and the items that are rendered in JP that were recovered from the SRAM dumps) are not stored in the BS-X ROM, and aren't dumped with the BS-X ROM itself. -If you have a BS-X cartridge with interesting-appearing SRAM (Are the seasons different? Are there items which appear to refer to Soundlink games?), please see if you can send it to Callis (http://eludevisibility.org/)to receive a SRAM dump.-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P317zCaSfZ0
This video shows retrieving a schedule from a building. Currently the programs, for whatever reason, have absurd and/or outright impossible file sizes (How the heck am I gonna get 52M out of an 8M Memory Pack?).

[LuigiBlood]

It was needed for me talk here. (Thanks Google to find this topic.)

I hope the goal of BS-X Project is understandable ^^

By the way, i have edited bsnes' source code for it's accuracy, debugger and its part of Data Pack emulation support.
Also...
I hope the information of download data in the wiki is understandable.
And i'm not done yet.

It's quite difficult, since i'm mostly trying some random tests, using a tracer and read the asm opcodes, and watch the RAM too.
(Download Size of program, is really, really weird.)

[LuigiBlood]

"Double posting" even if the date of the post is quite different, but well, it's just to bump the topic, i want to see what others think of this project...

By the way, i just released bsnes-bsx v003 here:
http://bsxproj.superfamicom.org/

(Download Screen stays, no errors anymore)